German bloggers getting nervous about XBOX360 Swastika advertisement.

[dhinojosa]

I am freaked out by this too.....

http://www.gamestar.de/aktuell/blog/post/1/359 (Warning: slow connection)



Translation of the blog (using altavista):

Xbox 360, super equipment, I will buy surely as a Mulit platform player on the first day. But when me the colleague Heuser showed this motive for poster, I am nevertheless frightened something. What exactly wants to say Microsoft with this picture? ", we the 1000-jaehrige console realm establishes hello!" or "Playstation user are Untermen!" Perhaps I am from the many anniversaries of the last time (end of war etc..) over-sensitively, but goes to me somehow nevertheless too far. Wouldn't have to be noticeable in the publicity department of an international company such as Microsoft? As said, my purchase decision will not affect the picture. But an amusing feeling remains only times...


Information received from DU user Kellanved.

[CanuckAmok]

1. this smacks of a hoax...

...but it's just as likely real.

If real, what the fuck were they thinking?

Probably the same ad agency who designed the Columbia Sportswear logo.

[UncleSepp]

2. Fan blades

Fan blades, propellor, if it's not a hoax, then they probably thought it looked spinny and dynamic like a machine part. Somebody just might have had a moron moment. It could also have been that whoever worked on the project didn't come from a culture where that would have first looked like a swastika, or from a culture where the first association with the swastika wasn't anything to do with Nazis. For an international company's publicity department, that would not be surprising - the whole world does not see swastikas in every four armed object.

[LuPeRcALiO]

3. it looks like a swastika made out of rotting bananas.

weird.

[NightOwwl]

4. It's a hoax.

If you Google "Xbox360 logo" you'll see there is all kinds of speculation about what the logo will look like. I guess MTV ran an ad on 5/12/05, and since then this has been a hot topic.

[dhinojosa]

5. I don't know this is a poster ad...

not the televised ad...

[Kellanved]

6. AFAIK no

Apparantly it is an poster which was part of the press kit. (the four controller thing is also visible in one of the teaser spots)

At the moment MS is busy retracting it, but as of now it still is linked in some articles about the box's presentation.

[Nimrod]

7. It doesn't look like a swastika

To me. Looks more like four controllers in a flower pattern. Wonder if paisley design shirts will be declared swastikas now?

[buzzard]

8. It looks like the xbox controls.n/t

[hopein08]

9. Looks like what they do with Olympic emblems...

you know how each Olympic Games has the emblem where they incorporate all five colors of the rings into some type of symbollic picture. I'm thinking of the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998, I think. Here's the poster.



I can see how it could be seen as a swastika. It's probably much more likely if you're looking for something.